While the present invention has a variety of uses, it is particularly suited for use in supporting floral arrangements in containers for decorative purposes.
The floral industry distributes and sells fresh flowers made into arrangements for decorative purposes. These arrangements are made by professional designers trained in this art form. Originally, cut flowers were simply arranged in vases or containers filled with water. This caused problems in transporting the flowers from the shops to the consumers in that the arrangements were not held in place and became disarranged. The need to hold the flowers in an arranged manner resulted in the development of rigid floral forms for this purpose. These foams are made from polymer forming chemicals that release gases when the polymers are formed thus causing foaming. These foams are rigid and must be shaped to fit the container. These foams are normally marketed in the form of blocks and the florist must cut these rigid foams to the required shape and size to fit in the containers. This results in waste scrap and requires time and work for shaping and sizing of the foam to fit the container and taping in place. In addition, since these foams are rigid, once the stem of a flower is inserted into the foam it cannot be removed and reinserted without leaving a hole where it was inserted.
Also, ground rigid foam and foam pellets have been used for supports for floral arrangements; however, this has not been satisfactory in that the floral arrangement easily shifts since good stable support is not provided.
Numerous materials, such as sand, dirt, rocks, etc. can be used to hold flowers rigidly in place; however, these are generally unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons.
Also, there are spillage problems with prior art floral supports. For example, a large number of funeral homes will not permit containers with water in their parlors due to spillage on expensive carpets.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,971,292 discloses the use of various clays, alkali silicates and similar materials to form a support for fresh flowers. Products made from these materials and by the techniques described therein are unacceptable in the florist industry as all of these materials require vigorous mixing or hand kneading, they must be present in large amounts to provide support and tend to pack in place, they displace too much water in vases rather than holding water in an open structure of the particles thus providing inadequate water to the fresh flowers, they pack in such a manner to prevent easy insertion of fresh flowers and shift due to the lack of binding properties between the gel substance and other aggregates that they are used with in conjunction with the gel. The support disclosed by this patent has never been marketed on any substantial scale.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,973,355 discloses a live plant growth mixture in which plant growth material is coated with water-insoluble, water-swellable, cross linked polymers and pressed and dried into a hard mass. When added to water in large quantities such as is necessary for fresh flower longevity, this material does not provide adequate support for floral arrangements and when added in very large ratios of material to water, there is inadequate water available for the flowers.
Other U.S. Pat. Nos. disclose the use of moss and water (1,562,992 and 2,971,292), solid or crushed urea-formaldehyde (2,753,277) and plastic foam (2,774,187).
In short, when floral supports are made with the materials and techniques used in the above-mentioned and described above patents, an inferior, impractical support is obtained for supporting and inadequate water is provided to cut flower arrangements.
It would be highly desirable to provide a support for floral arrangements such as cut fresh flowers, dried flowers, artificial flowers, fern and the like, in which the dry ingredients can be added directly into water in a container without agitation and which will automatically disperse throughout and fall into place in the water and form a firm support for fresh flowers that is uniform and attractive, which firmly holds the floral arrangements in position, which provides adequate water to fresh flowers, in which there is no waste or scrap, no shaping or sizing of the support is necessary, there is no spillage or slipping during transportation and use of the arrangements, in which rearrangement in the design can be easily made by removing plant stems and pressing the undesirable holes back into a solid position without any damage or crumbling to the support and reinserting the plant stems where desired, which can be used easily with large accessories, such as candles, which gives a uniform appearance in transparent containers, which can be removed easily from a container by flushing with warm water, and which can be reused simply by permitting the bound aggregate support to dry and adding additional water.